The cage-fighting boom - all that's missing is the cage

John Elder

Australian Fighting Championships

Sunday Age Senior Writer John Elder accompanied photographer Paul Jeffers ringside to document cage fighting without the cage, at the Australian Fighting Championships held in Melbourne Friday night..This ferocious and intense form of fighting is the fastest growing sport in the world in terms of audience numbers and is growing faster in Australia than anywhere else in the world. Photo: Paul Jeffers

FRIDAY night, in a Flemington hall hung with chandeliers: two men are on the floor of the fighting ring; Kenan Palliser, the one on the bottom, has his legs around the other's waist. The man on top is attempting to get a choke hold. It is very slow and intense, as compelling as watching a couple of spiders locked in a deadly mating duel. The audience chats and laughs among themselves, roaring when Palliser gets a hand free and slashes desperately at the other man's face.

In their grappling the men have ventured close to the edge of the ring, and the ref breaks it up. Palliser then crawls on his hands and knees to the middle of the ring, lies down again, bridal style, and his opponent climbs back on top.

This is cage fighting without the mesh cage that is legal in New South Wales but banned in Victoria.

''It's very annoying,'' says Palliser, 20, a gently spoken boy from Tasmania who had his third professional fight tonight, his first loss. ''It is a lot safer when there is a cage.''

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Cage fighting - banned by John Brumby - is an emotive issue. The cage gives the illusion that these men - and women - have nowhere to go. The fighters say it keeps them safe.

''Everyone says there are no rules, there are lots of little rules,'' says Palliser.

''You can't knee or kick your opponent in the head when they're down.''

You can kick them in the legs, though. In a featherweight bout, Ivo Dos Santos - who had his own cheer squad in white T-shirts - repeatedly held the feet of his fallen opponent, Callum Lewis, and kicked him in the back of the legs over and over to wear him down.

His coach was urging him on, but some of the crowd didn't like it. ''Let him up, ref. Let him up.''

''The style of fighting is very intense,'' says Palliser. Several fighters described mixed martial arts as being ''like a controlled street fight''.

Palliser recently finished his apprenticeship as a plumber. His father would love him to take up badminton. He's never been in a street fight and doesn't regard himself as a violent person. ''I used to be a gymnast. For me this is a journey of the self: to go where the fear is. I used to be a nervous person. In my first fight, I got up on the scale and my foot was shaking because I was so scared. I wanted to deal with my own fear. That's what keeps me going. In life there's no easy way in going about these things. You can't manufacture fear.''

In fight six, Fabio Galeb and Daniel Kelly make a compelling argument for the cage when they come hurtling out of the ring as one giant animal. As they tumble over the ropes and into the audience - wide-eyed people raising their hands as if to stop them - the violence as spectacle takes on a more urgent, visceral quality.

Adam Milankovic, promoter and founder of the Australian Fighting Championships, says the title ''cage fighting'' - said to be the fastest-growing sport in the world in terms of audience numbers - was a marketing ploy in the US where the sport was founded. ''It gave it this barbaric look and that's what got everybody's backs up. At the same time, it's growing faster in Australia than anywhere else in the world.''

It's hard to know what the audience really wants. When the action slows, they get restless. But when the fighting is truly ferocious - such that a bout is finished in seconds - they jeer and boo. The last two fights, between heavyweights, were finished in the first round.

There is a great cheering when Peter ''The Chief'' Graham lands a monstrous blow to the left eye of American Donnie Lester, who soon after puts up his hand. When the ref says it's over the mood slumps.

''I've lost my vision,'' says Lester, apologetically.

But already the crowd is waiting for the next bout.

14 comments

Boxing ring ropes are simply not suitable for this style of fighting, a fixed perimeter barrier is safer for the opponents and the public.

Commenter

tisgazz

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 7:45AM

Cage or not, it's off!

Commenter

Not for mel

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 8:07AM

As a writer & martial arts practitioner, including MMA, I am sorry to say that this article was vague, barely on topic, patronising, and not at all educational."Bridal style"? Seriously, John?As a spectator at AFC 4, it was painfully obvious to me that cages are far safer, and remove the risk of wrestling competitors falling out of the ring. The government may have not allowed cages to avoid the risk of being called "the government that sanctioned cagefighting", but given that it is a sport that combines boxing & kickboxing with wrestling * jiu jitsu, practitioners are in danger of hitting the judges tables, or even concrete floor, over and over again. As it was, I repeatedly saw the referees having to hang on to the ropes and use them to try to pull the fighters back in !A simple state rule change - one already called for by the state's boxing commission, I hear, would make the game flow a lot better and make it safer, too.

Commenter

Peter M

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 8:09AM

I guess it's just like a dog fight, you keep the wild animals away from the spectators. Putting them in a cage or a pit will work well.

Commenter

Cameron

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 8:35AM

I don't care how they do it.

I'm just sad about society when a chunk of it thinks that beating the crap out of one another is fun and entertainment.

When will we grow up?

Commenter

HiLo

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 9:08AM

I am not into this sport, but I have no problem if a cage if built if it means better safety. But, I would suggest that this sport be taxed and the tax dollars be used to treat all the medical problems including long term brain damage later in life as I don't want to pick up the tab for guys who bash them selves in a sport. I have no problem with them doing it, I just don't want the extra expense of paying for their medical problems as its self inflicted.

Commenter

Mel

Location

Mel

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 9:26AM

The Age's Leaping Larry would disagree but I say that boxing/fighting should be banned full stop. Surely in 2012 we've moved on from the Roman Empire's idea that two men smashing each other to pieces for the enjoyment of blood-thirsty patrons is "entertainment".

Commenter

Greg

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 9:49AM

Ban all physical one on one contact sport now. We are not barbarians. Portraying physical violence as entertainment desensitizes people to violence, leading to street assaults and domestic violence. Its time to ban it outright. Any person who supports it is nothing but a thug.

Commenter

Brutal barbarians

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 10:02AM

Says a lot about the mentality of people that would pay money to watch people fight, the promoters and the pugilists. Welcome back to the barbaric stone age.

Commenter

Quantum of Solace

Date and time

December 09, 2012, 10:38AM

It's dismaying to see that the audiences for this "sport" are growing. I can understand that some people who fight in this do it for the reasons that Kenan Palliser does - and that's fine. If that is the way he undertakes his journey into himself, I won't complain. It's the audience that is the problem.

Fights like this should be conducted without a paying audience and with a maximum of a dozen people who are not participants or organisers present. Take along people who are important for your emotional support, people who will be genuinely upset if you get hurt. But not the people who come looking for blood.

Of couse, that would destroy the current economics of the game and put the promoters out of business. But stacks of people learn karate and participate in tournaments, without the necessity of turning it into an exhibition at the Colosseum.